I first learned about spaces while playing hide-and-seek.

We lived in a small town. The house was always full-relatives, neighbours, voices spilling into corridors, doors half-open, footsteps everywhere. I searched for corners where no one thought to look: behind the almirah, beneath the staircase, between stacked trunks. I longed for empty spaces within the house.

When I found one, I held my breath, afraid that even breathing might give me away. Being unseen felt like victory. The constant pressure to conform was suddenly lifted when I was hiding.

Our house never belonged to us alone. Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbours-people came and went without warning. Someone was always calling out from the gate, stepping in without knocking, settling down as if they had never left. There was laughter, quarrelling, the clatter of utensils, bodies brushing past one another.

Privacy was not denied; it was simply unimaginable. Opinions and judgements were thrown casually, but they were always thrown around.

At night, I lay awake listening to the ceiling fan creak, waiting for the house to fall silent. Silence never lasted. A cough from the next room, a whisper, the rustle of someone turning in their sleep, I pressed my thoughts inward, folding them carefully, as though hiding them where no one could touch them.

At least, at night no one could see my awkward body, my crooked teeth and my nervous gait as I tried to manoeuvre through the people while tightly clutching and balancing a coarse, heavy, cloth pad between my thighs.

As I grew older, I began to notice how easily space could be breached. A look held too long. A question asked too sharply. Words spokenas if they were entitled to answers. I learned to step back, to shrink without moving, to disappear in plain sight. When there was nowhere to go, I retreated inward. Inside, there were no interruptions. I could think and undo my thoughts. I could feel without being seen.

Once, during a walk, an acquaintance commented on my silence. “You’re very quiet,” he said, as if it were an accusation. I smiled, saying nothing. He mistook that silence for permission and stepped closer. I remember the sudden tightening in my chest, the urge to flee, even though the road was wide and empty.

Space, I realised, could collapse anywhere.

Now the house I live in has many rooms. Most of them remain unused, furniture pushed against walls, beds neatly made for guests who rarely come. Some afternoons, I move from room to room, as if searching for something misplaced. There is always enough physical space. Still, I cannot find a place to sit without feeling watched by expectation.

In the quiet moments—after the child is asleep, the lights dimmed- I try to enter that inner space again. But it no longer opens easily. It feels crowded now, filled with unfinished thoughts and remembered voices, obligations that follow me even here. I sit still, waiting for a clearing that does not come.

Sometimes I stand by the window and look out at the empty street. Nothing moves. For a brief moment, the world seems to recede. I hold on to that pause, that narrow opening, before it closes again.

It is not much, but it is the only space that still feels mine.